Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) had been prepared by precipitation polymerization method using acrylamide as the functional monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as the cross-linker, acetonitrile as the porogen solvent and protocatechuic acid (PA), one of phenolic acids, as the template molecule. The MIPs were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared, and their performance relative to non-imprinted polymers was assessed by equilibrium binding experiments. Six structurally similar phenolic acids, including p-hydroxybenzoic acid, gallic acid, salicylic acid, syringic acid, vanillic acid, ferulic acid were selected to assess the selectivity and recognition capability of the MIPs. The MIPs were applied to extract PA from the traditional Chinese medicines as a solid-phase extraction sorbent. The resultant cartridge showed that the MIPs have a good extraction performance and were able to selectively extract almost 82% of PA from the extract of Rhizoma homalomenae. Thus, the proposed molecularly imprinted-solid phase extraction-high performance liquid chromatography method can be successfully used to extract and analyse PA in traditional Chinese medicines.